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Words and images by Joel Meadows and Dan Palmer of VEG‘s App-Tech workshops

Most of our household energy

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

requirements come in the form

of space heating, water heating
or cooking, with these making
up a large percentage of our
monthly bill. Rocket stoves are
an example of appropriate
technology which can cover all
of those needs, cost you next
to nothing to build, and just a
few sticks to run.
Rocket stove combustion systems
deserve attention for a few reasons:

1. they offer close to complete

combustion of the wood, meaning
they are hyper-efficient and burn
super-clean
2. they can reach very high temperatures, and can be hooked up to almost anything we want to use
that heat for
3. they can use wood typically considered too small to call firewood
4. they are easily built from common materials.

That’s right – you can build these systems in a day or two, and then watch them turn twigs into heat far
more efficiently than most wood stoves, with far less set-up cost. If you are good at scavenging bits they
can cost virtually nothing to build, and when you prune your fruit trees you can get the fuel you need to
cook dinner, heat your home, and enjoy a nice hot shower.

HOW ROCKET COMBUSTION DIFFERS FROM NORMAL COMBUSTION

The main difference between a normal fireplace or woodstove and a rocket
stove is that rocket combustion is close to complete. When wood is burned it
releases volatile compounds that we recognise as smoke or soot or creosote. In
a rocket stove these compounds are sucked into the insulated and very hot
‘burn tunnel’ of the unit where they combust, releasing even more heat energy
to drive the rocket process, unlike a normal fire where they are blown out the
chimney.

This distinctive sucking of the flames down into the burn tunnel, and the resultant ‘roar’ is what gives
rocket stoves their name. This is also a part of their magic. Rocket stoves are open where the wood is
fed in, allowing lots of oxygen to be drawn into the unit. As the fire starts, and the burn tunnel heats up,
the rising hot air races up the heat riser, drawing lots of air behind it. This incoming air flows into the feed

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

tube and across the burning wood – creating the same effect as pointing a big air-blower at your fire. It
gets really hot, the wood burns beautifully, and you hear the air roaring as it charges through the system.

In conventional wood stoves the air intake is small, and adjustable to even
smaller. This lack of oxygen chokes the combustion, leading to cool burns,
incomplete combustion and lots of smoke and creosote. When combustion is
complete, what comes out the chimney is pretty much only carbon dioxide,
meaning no smoke: smoke means incomplete combustion, unburned fuel, or
wasted energy. We are culturally trained to associate smoke with fire; but with
rocket stoves, sometimes when there is no smoke, there is still fire!

Having ensured complete combustion, and hence maximum heat generation, only then do we think
about using the resultant heat. Conventional wood stoves are sucking heat away from the combustion
chamber for cooking, space heating or with ‘wet back’ water heaters, meaning the unit just can’t get hot
enough for combustion to be complete, resulting in smoke. The combustion chamber of the rocket stove
is heavily insulated to prevent premature heat loss, and an enormous amount of heat is generated by the
efficient combustion process.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT HEAT

When combustion is complete, we can extract heat from the stove at the top of the heat riser. And here
is where your imagination and inner inventor can run wild: anything you can think to do with very hot air
can be done from this point.

Here are a few things that can be powered with a rocket stove.

Oven – either a converted conventional oven with the rocket under it, or a purpose built barrel oven
from old ‘44 gallon’ (around 200 litre) drums.
Cooktop or BBQ – old cast iron BBQ plates can work well, or heavy copper radiator plates to put
pots and pans on, or just cook over the stream of hot air.
Hot-water systems –we’ve made various systems, from ones that heat a big-vented tank of water
with a copper coil running through it, to heat exchanger thermosiphon units boosting solar hot water.
Space heaters – often seen with an inverted ‘44 gallon’ drum being the main radiator, with the flue
running through heavy earth or stone elements (rocket mass-heaters).

Take care! A well-built rocket stove can work so well it can be dangerous. Dan’s rocket oven once got to
180 °C in six minutes, 230 °C in seven minutes, and 325 °C in thirteen minutes! As for Joel’s latest
rocket oven, on his first test run the whole inner skin of the feed tube was glowing red, as was the
bottom of the inside of the oven: the thermometer read 350 °C, and the roast vegies were pretty charred
(he has since tamed it down to 200 °C).

While quite popular in some parts of the world, rocket stoves are a relatively rare sight in Australian
permaculture systems. They are an excellent example of an appropriate technology alternative to
conventional means of heating food, water or space; and they are well worth finding out more about.

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

To read this
article and
more about
alternative
technology
check out Temperatures are off the
chart
issue six of
Pip
Magazine.
The Rocket Powered Oven: how to
build your own super-efficient
cooker by Tim Barker and
Illustrated Joel Meadows is now
available as an eBook from our
online store.

The drum style rocket stove is not only functional, it’s beautiful

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

The eBook includes instructions for a rocket conversion of a conventional oven – keep you eye peeled for appropriate technology
workshops with VEG here.

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Related Posts:
Broadscale Permaculture at Millpost Farm
Finding pleasure in the free things in life
Open source Permaculture Guidebook for the tropics
David Holmgren farewells Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture
Sunrise Farm demonstrates resilience after earthquakes

appropriate technology, Dan Palmer, feature, Joel Meadows, Tim Barker

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

Finding pleasure in the free things in life The 2017 permaculture calendar selection

9 Responses to The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves

REPLY
Dmytro Afanasiev August 3, 2019 at 7:44 pm #

how you clean stove from ash?

REPLY
Richard August 26, 2019 at 11:24 am #

With a ‘J tube’ style design it can be done using a tin can once the ash has cooled.

REPLY
Greg October 25, 2019 at 12:52 pm #

I’ve been looking for dimensions/specs for rocket heaters.

Such as how long should the burn chamber & riser be and what diameter (I assume they are
related).
I’d like to build a large unit for a main room and a micro sized unit for a remote room. Id prefer not
to have to figure out the optimum dimensions by trial and error.

REPLY
warehouse November 11, 2019 at 11:03 am #

I have heard the proportions of 1:2:3 suggested (feed:burn:riser) with the tube being round
and big enough that you can easily in it to clean it. In “The Rocket Powered Oven” eBook, Tim
says “for a rocket stove to work well dimensions are vitally important”. In his extensive
explanation of how a rocket stove works he suggests to keep the feed tube as short as
practical, the burn tunnel as short as practical and the heat riser as tall as practical. I’ve built
an oven using this guide, and can highly recommend it. It will save a lot of trial and error.

REPLY
Clyde Salera November 21, 2018 at 11:42 pm #

In the farm we have lots of dried coconuts, leaves, wood: is there a design that utilize such fuel sources,
e.g. coco drying ….

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The fundamentals of Rocket Stoves - Permaculture Principles https://permacultureprinciples.com/post/rocket-stoves/

REPLY
Abdulsamad sadiq October 30, 2018 at 10:23 pm #

Can charcoal be used as fuel in a rocket stove

REPLY
Richard November 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm #

Probably, but why would you bother when you can just use twigs?

REPLY
Virgil October 15, 2018 at 9:56 pm #

a genius rocket stove that produces domestic hot water, underfloor heating, cooking oven and stove, and
a warm sleeping couch:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fEr9Vd8Mx38

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